r/retail

I’m looking to supplement my income with a part time second job, but I haven’t actually worked a retail position in over 20 years. I had several retail jobs in my teens/early 20s so I’m not completely clueless. But I worry that when I upload my resume full of accounting positions to stores’ websites they’ll take one look and say “what does any of this have to do with being a sales associate?” Should I create a cover letter listing my previous retail experience to add to the application? I’m not sure if anyone even bothers to read those anymore.

Any advice on how to handle the process would be appreciated!

Off the bat- I think it's funny, and I'm glad the workforce is seeing some kind of change even if its small.. I doubt higher ups will catch on or even care, but I still find it interesting.

In my area at least I've noticed that every possible store is always hiring for cashiers. Those posts never close on job boards. There's only ever 1-2 cashiers at the stores whenever I go at least, and interviewing at these places have been an experience for sure.

I keep getting hit with versions of, "I don't think you fit the business needs (contradicting their next offer btw)/That position is actually closed/We went with another person, but I want to offer you a cashiering position instead!"- After calling me back for an entirely different position. Before my partner landed a job they were experiencing the exact same thing when they interviewed at retail stores.

I applaud anyone who can hold the job down.. I've held the postion more than once in my life to get out of desperate/tight financial spots and simply just needing a job, I don't have any ill will for anyone who does it out of necessity or simply just enjoy it. It was destroying me though lol.

It's standing there for hours on end, getting abused person after person. I've had heavy objects thrown at me, I've been cussed out, I've been threatened with violence, I've been belittled and actually attacked... The pay stopped being worth it despite the desperation. It seems like interviewers here are catching on that very little people are willing to put up with it anymore and are trying to push people who have applied to different positions into doing it- maybe hoping they'll be desperate enough to just have any job at all?

Funnily enough, I actually do great in food service!! I've avoided it for so long because of the horror stories that are 10x worse than retail, but I needed some kind of change, and I'm for sure not qualified in anything other than customer service at this point in time.. I think I'm doing ok! Maybe it's cause I'm fat lmao

I'm not sure how to ask this.

how do other people in retail handle the stress of customers yelling at you or getting mad?

Just cause I'm having a hard time at my job just letting it roll off my back especially when they threaten me while I'm at work alone.

I really like my job and I don't want to leave it just because I can't handle people getting upset over things out of my control.

I've worked at a Goodwill for a little over three months now and I've had a person come in and steal from us four times. Her routine is to grab clothes in the front and then walk to the back and use the lack of camera coverage to stuff the clothes and other things into her purse and over her arm and then walk out the far door from the checkout. She comes in a hour to hour and a half to close hang around till close and leave just before. She has yellow hair and a bright red car and doesn't even leave the parking lot right after she steals from us.

We can't do anything. The store has terrible camera coverage so we can't prove that she takes anything but we all know she does. All management can do is submit a report to the 'overseer', understandably they don't want us to stop her so all I can do is watch her walk out while stealing from us. I know she is a thief, I know her car and plate, I know everyone at the store is fed up with her, and there is nothing I can do. I just want to her to stop or for us to make her stop.

Back in my day....

If a customer attempted to buy an item and that item didn't ring up because it was discontinued, we'd let t/ customer have it, for FREE 😆.

We didn't give AF but in a cool, customer satisfaction way 😇

These days everyone's afraid of getN fired 🤣

Whatever you call that job you have to do where you go around the store pulling everything to the front of the shelf

This shit takes me like twice as long as my coworkers. My aisles usually look better but nobodys judging us on the quality of our blocking, they care more about how much we can get done.

Do any of you have any tricks or strategies that make this a quicker task?

I work at a Walgreen's and a lot of the customers there tell me how helpful I am or compliment me on other things. That being said, I was told about two weeks ago or so that around the time I first started working there, an older lady called in wanting me fired. She told my supervisor I was dressed like a cat and that my makeup looked like a cat's. Mind you, I am always in our dress code. My makeup is a little on the alternative side but I have toned it down a lot since my previous job.

What I find funny is that she admitted I was very helpful to her and her neighbor that tagged along with her. Yet, she still wanted me fired just because she did not like the way that I look. My supervisor stood up for me and said I obviously have never appeared as a cat or "cat like" at work. The lady did not like my supervisor's nonchalant attitude towards her complaint. The lady ended up putting a comment through our system for management to see. She said I was an embarrassment for her neighbor to see & that her neighborhood was going to rally together to go against these kinds of issues.

Situations like these make me wonder what the hell is up with some people? I'm obviously still standing since I am not violating any rule of my job. I just wonder why people care so much about what someone looks like. As long as I'm clean and appear happy to help, that's all that should matter lol.

I work part time retail, and have only worked here for a few months but I’ve only ever called in sick one other time where it was just for a day. Called in sick on Wednesday, felt the same on Thursday but parents said to deal with it and go in, called in sick on Friday (today) because I’m much worse, and I’m worried I’ll have to call in sick tomorrow because it’s difficult to move. I don’t know if it’s stupid but I feel guilty calling in, because one, the a manger seems super annoyed when I do, two, I’ve had to work shifts alone due to people calling in sick and it really does suck.

My parents say to just wear a mask and deal with it but I don’t feel comfortable going in and touching peoples groceries while sick and I don’t know what to do.

I didn’t expect to feel so emotionally drained by a retail job. The thing is it’s not even that hard, I’m just so unhappy, my co workers make it bearable but I don’t know what to do. I’m new still and will feel like a failure quitting so soon, but I’m truly so unhappy and looking elsewhere already.

I Calgary a police officer was found guilty of stealing 20k of product from Home Depot through a scam called double walkout theft. The article gave a very short summary of the scam but I still can’t quite wrap my head around how this works. Can anyone shed some light on this?

The snippet from the article is below:

“Tepper, a 20-year veteran of the police service, admitted that between July 2024 and August 2025, he committed what’s known in the retail industry as “double walk-out thefts” at five different stores. 

The scam involved legally buying a tool, storing it in his car, and then immediately returning to the store to steal a second, identical item within minutes.”

Hello fellow retail workers! Basically I work in a small retail shop on a caravan park in the UK, which means that because its the summer holidays, its absolutely rammed every single day.

Ive been working here for over a month and already I am at the end of my tether. The managers (of course) exclusively single me out while not helping and treat me like a bumbling idiot.

Whats put me to the edge however is the fact that I have been put in for a 7am start (i live 20 minutes away, so i have to be up at atleast 6am) the morning after being put on a close shift (10:30pm). I am 20 years old and the law where i live requires i start another shift minimum 11 hours after.

The first time it happened I just got on with it thinking it was a mistake. The second time it happened i spoke to my manager who said it wouldn’t happen again, and now its happened again. Im only working to save a bit of extra money for when i go back to university next month and for an upcoming boys holiday so at this point im already mentally checked out of the job and dgaf. What is everyones advice moving forward? I have text my manager who hasnt replied and Im thinking if she either; A) doesn’t reply or B) cant change the shift then Im leaving after my next shift. Is this the right move?

So about three months ago, my store manager stepped down from her position and since then work has been a nightmare.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't enjoy working there before but, I feel like the overall work environment has suffered. Since she stepped down, I feel like our standards have taken a substantial plummet. Products are placed in multiple spots, products are just not going out because no one knows how to stock and they aren't being made to! Management is substantially weaker, our new store manager fears confrontation!

I don't think a store needs a manager who's all up in their employees' faces- don't get me wrong- but they need to be able to comfortably do some basic things. Like.. I don't know, tell their employees what to do. Get on them when they're doing something wrong. Our new store manager has been hiring a bunch of people she knows personally and I swear they just walk all over her, they do whatever they want. They're super rude too- oh yeah customer service standards are way down too. I don't know man, it pains me to work hard and then see shitheads come in and muck it up.

I don't even know why I'm writing this, I have a promising job interview at the college I go to coming up tomorrow. If all goes well, I'm handing in my two weeks' notice tomorrow. I'll get out of this shitty career and can finally feel a sense of peace when I get home in the evenings.

I guess I just wanted to vent. Wish me luck at the interview, good luck in each and everyone of your jobs! Wishing you all the best!

I just started a new part time seasonal job last week and now I found out my brothers ship is coming home from the navy and I want the last week of aug off to fly and visit him but I am scared I will look terrible already asking for a vacation. Advice? Should I just work to save my job

I work in retail, and I'm trying to understand the logic behind something my company has recently done.

Upper management has been putting pressure on store managers to reduce their labour spending. Basically, stores are being told they need to cut employee hours.

At my store, there was a front desk/customer service position that was staffed for 8 hours a day. Management decided to eliminate that position, so those 8 hours were removed from the store's labour budget.

I was working as the security guard at the front door. After the front desk position was eliminated, they moved me from security to the front desk.

So, as far as the store's labour budget is concerned, mission accomplished: they're now using 8 fewer employee hours per day.

Except there's a problem.

The front door still needs a security guard.

So the company hired an external security company to provide a guard.

The security contractor costs roughly twice as much as what it cost the company to have me doing security.

The reason this apparently works on paper is that the external security guard is paid from a completely separate budget. Their cost doesn't come out of the store's employee labour budget.

So essentially:

Before:

• Me: 8 hours of security
• Front desk employee: 8 hours
• 16 hours of employee labour

After:

• Me: 8 hours at the front desk
• External security guard: 8 hours at the door
• 8 fewer hours against the store's labour budget

But the company is actually spending more money because the external security guard costs about twice what I did.

And there's another problem: when I was doing security, I wasn't just standing at the door. When things were quiet, I could cover other employees' breaks, help customers, assist with other tasks, etc.

The external guard obviously isn't there to do those things. They're there to provide security.

So we've reduced employee hours on paper, increased the actual cost of security, lost some flexibility in the workforce, and increased the workload on everyone else.

Yet management seems completely happy with the result because the store's labour numbers look better.

I'm genuinely curious about the business/management side of this.

Why would a company do this? Is this simply what happens when different departments have separate budgets and KPIs, so a store manager is incentivised to reduce "labour costs" even if the company as a whole ends up spending more?

I'd especially like to hear from people who have worked in management, finance, retail, or large corporations. Is there something I'm missing about how companies account for this?

I have worked retail for almost a year. This is my first job and it was good at the start until a regular customer who came in and always has a problem with me erupted and shouted at me. I was depressed for 2 days. And I was shaking the next time I was at work. My co-worker noticed and I burst out crying. Ever since then, Im terrified it might happen again . I never knew I could cry like that especially in public. It is that bad I won't even cross roads because im scared I'll get honked at and I'll break down again or something else happens in public and I break down again. Im luckily enough to start college soon and I will get paid money at college double what I was getting at my job. I handed in my notice 3 days ago. I have 2 weeks left with 4 shifts left. Will it get better mentality for me ?

So there have been hints from other coworkers and I found a for what looks like my exact job. I have not finished my 3 month probation yet but I was originally told my manager liked my work but my coworkers however some don't like me. Should I wait it out to get fired or just start applying and leave now. It would suck because this place is giving me perfect hours and a good pay. It's a bummer some coworkers don't like me. I overheard them wishing it was someone of their own race. That can't be proved either it's my word against theirs.